Jesse Gemstone
Jesse Gemstone (1976-) was an American televangelist and megachurch pastor who was a member of the prominent Gemstone family of evangelists. Biography Jesse Gemstone was born in Rogers, South Carolina in 1976, the eldest son of Eli and Aimee-Leigh Gemstone and the older brother of Judy and Kelvin. He followed in his father's footsteps as an evangelist for the Gemstone Salvation Center, and, from 1998 onwards, he was one of the hosts of the family's televangelism show, "The Righteous Gemstones". Gemstone lived in a mansion on the family compound in Rogers, where he lived an opulent life funded by tithes from the church's congregants. He also travelled around the world with his family and expanded the church to over 70 countries, although he had a turbulent personal life which he attempted to conceal. In 2019, a video showing him partying with a cocaine-using prostitute and his friend Chad during Prayer Power Convention in Atlanta emerged, and blackmailers threatened to leak it unless he paid them a ransom of $1 million. Jesse believed that Pastor John Wesley Seasons was the blackmailer, so he and three of his friends attempted to attack Seasons at his home one night while masked and equipped with melee weapons. Seasons used a shotgun to wound Chad in the chest with buckshot, and Gemstone and his friends escaped. Ultimately, Gemstone succeeded in running over two of the blackmailers at a parking lot when they met a second time, with Kelvin and Judy accompanying him. However, they discovered that there was a third blackmailer, and they resolved to track them down until they learned that they had left town. Shortly after, Jesse's estranged eldest son Gideon Gemstone ostensibly returned from Hollywood, where he had worked as a stuntman; unbeknownst to Jesse, Gideon had been the third blackmailer, and he decided to work under Martin Imari with the goal of gaining access to the family's finances. Jesse ultimately decided that Gideon meant a lot to him, and he apologized to him for his failures and welcomed him back into the family. Gideon ultimately thwarted his fellow blackmailer Scotty Steele's attempt to rob the church on Easter Sunday, and his father assumed that he was gay when Jesse tried to tell him about the truth of his and Scotty's partnership, brushing off what Jesse intended to be a confession of guilt. That same night, however, Scotty entered the family compound and kidnapped Jesse, Gideon, and Eli Gemstone and brought them to the megachurch, where he had them crack the safe so that he could retrieve the money; the police later rescued the family, while Scotty was accidentally killed in a car crash with Jesse's uncle Baby Billy Freeman, who was leaving town after another dispute with the Gemstones. After the family's rescue, Gideon confessed his guilt in the blackmail scheme and was kicked out of the house by his mother, while Jesse decided to come clean with his and his friend's actions by showing his wife and the families of his friends the blackmail video. This led to his wife kicking him out of the house, and Jesse sought to convince Gideon to return from a humanitarian trip to Haiti as a peace offering to his wife. Jesse failed the first time, and he was then kicked out by a disappointed Amber. He then headed to Haiti a second time, and he decided to work side-by-side with his son to rebuild the broken relationship and do penance for his sins. Category:1976 births Category:Americans Category:English-Americans Category:Protestants Category:Pentecostals Category:Evangelists Category:American priests Category:Priests Category:Republican Party members Category:South Carolina Republicans Category:American conservatives Category:Conservatives Category:People from Rogers, South Carolina Category:People from South Carolina